It is known that all of the vital functions contributing to the human metabolism require oxygen, and that it is necessary for the human organism to obtain sufficient oxygen through breathing. However, methods have been developed for purposefully supplying the human organism with an amount of oxygen in addition to that obtained through breathing. Such additional oxygen can be supplied for generally improving normal function and wellbeing, on the one hand, but can also be used particularly as a treatment, or as a supplement to treatments for sick individuals. To accomplish this, it is known to use enriched water, that is, water enriched with free, gaseous oxygen.
In one known method of enriching water with gaseous oxygen, oxygen gas is supplied to water via a perlite disposed on the bottom of an open container that is filled with water. Perlite is a porous volcanic mineral. The oxygen is forced through the perlite at low pressure, and bubbles through the water in the container before subsequently escaping into the environment or the atmosphere at the liquid-air interface. Passing the oxygen through the water causes it to be enriched with oxygen. As a result of this enrichment, the concentration of "free" oxygen in the water is about 35 mg/L. The term `free`, as it is used here with respect to the oxygen gas, and throughout this application with respect to free gas, is meant to include gas molecules which are released within the liquid phase as their physical interactions with liquid molecules in the fluid are broken.
This known method has some drawbacks, however. For example, the concentration of free oxygen obtained in the water is only about 35 mg/L, which is a relatively low amount. Furthermore, after bubbling through the liquid, a portion of the supplied oxygen escapes into the atmosphere and cannot be reused, thereby resulting in a high gas consumption for the amount of oxygen-enriched water that is actually obtained.
While there may be beneficial effects to the human organism of using water enriched at the known, relatively low concentrations described above, better treatment results could be obtained if higher levels of oxygenation could be achieved. Further, if less oxygen were lost to the atmosphere, the costs of producing oxygen-enriched water could be reduced.
Besides use for human consumption, for general well being and in therapeutic methods as referred to above, oxygen enriched water has other known uses, such as in water purification processes, cleaning processes, and the like. Further, it may be desirable to enrich other liquids with other gases for other uses, at higher concentrations than are currently achievable, and with less wasted gas during the process of enrichment.
As discussed above, therefore, a need has existed for water more highly enriched with oxygen, a method of achieving the higher enrichment, and an apparatus for achieving the higher enrichment. A need has further existed for other liquid/gas-enriched products, as well as a method and apparatus for producing them.